The season 2016-17 is officially over with Real Madrid CF lifting the Champions League trophy for a second year in a row. Cristiano Ronaldo added to his yearly tally with two goals during this final and leapfrogged Lionel Messi as the best scorer of this season’s edition of the Champions League with 12 goals.

Both players were also on international duty last week with Ronaldo scoring a brace to lead Portugal to a 3-0 win versus Latvia in UEFA World Cup qualifier while Messi was kept off the score-sheet during a friendly match won by Argentina versus arch-rivals Brazil in Melbourne, Australia.

After 23 weeks into 2017, the statistics between the two giants of football look like this and Ronaldo is coming back:

One year away. We are one year away from the beginning of the most popular competition in the world of sports, the FIFA World Cup. It seems like yesterday witnessing Germany beat Brazil 7-1 at the Maracana Stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, in 2014 in front of their home fans. This match shook the world.

It also seemed like a recent memory looking at Lionel Messi, after Argentina lost in extra-time to those same Germans 1-0, dejected after accepting the Golden Ball award for the best player of the competition.

Qualifications are still underway and we still may be surprised if some teams can qualify or not for this World Cup, which will host for first time 48 countries instead of 32.

Argentina, for example, is currently in big trouble, being fifth in the standings and with Lionel Messi still has to serve three of a four match ban imposed by FIFA (La Pulga and Argentina Futbol Association have appealed the decision and will meet with FIFA during the summer to reduce the suspension).

European nations have won the World Cup three times in a row now starting with Italy in 2006. Spain followed in 2010 and Germany in 2014. In the history of the game, it would generally be one European country followed by one South America side. After all, Brazil has five stars on their shirt, Argentina and Uruguay 2 each, making it 9 Word Cups in total.

My money is on a South American country to win it all next summer and despite the fact that Brazil has been the first country to earn its ticket to the big dance along with already qualified Russia, my prediction is the following:

Argentina, led by Lionel Messi, raises its third World Cup and the FC Barcelona genius cements his status as probably the best player to ever grace a football pitch.

Another year, another busy schedule for football in general, especially at the international level with the Africa Cup of Nations which occurs every two years and will take place in Gabon (from January 14 to February 5, 2017) and the FIFA Confederations Cup (in the summer) which features the winner of each continental cup and the World Cup. This year, the tournament will host:

Eight teams, four groups and “a curse”. Yes, since its creation in 1991, no country which has won this tournament has been able to repeat the following year by raising the World Cup as champions. A little bit like the new format of Champions League introduced in 1992 where no club has been able to repeat as back-to-back winners. Will the country of Russia be where the “curse” is going to end? I doubt it, but we never know, the Chicago Cubs, baseball infamous team ended their so-called “Curse of the Goat) this year after 108 years of waiting by winning the Major League Baseball World Series, so there is hope.

At club level, the different leagues are still dominated, in most parts, by the usual suspects:FC Bayern Munich is dominating, albeit not as easily as expected the German Bundesliga.Juventus FC is still on top of Italian Serie A.Paris Saint-Germain is third, after winning four consecutive French Ligue 1 titles.Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona are respectively first and second of Spain’s LaLiga Santander.
And Chelsea FC has a strong lead in the Barclays Premier League in Britain.

The UEFA Champions League will be interesting as well. The round of 16 offers already mouthwatering encounters such as: